Facebook referral traffic remains steady despite algorithm changes (FB)
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Facebook's overall share of referral traffic to publishers has remained steady despite recent changes to its News Feed, according to a new report from Parsely.
The data found that the average number of page views per minute directed from Facebook to Parsely's network of over 600 digital publishers remained nearly constant at nearly 24,000 since the beginning of June.
The data should be comforting to digital publishers that initially feared that the algorithm changes would dramatically decrease their viewership.
- In late June, Facebook announced it would begin prioritizing user-generated content — like personal posts and updates — over media and brand content.
- During the first week of August, Facebook announced it begin changing its Newsfeed algorithm to limit news articles with clickbait headlines.
The data appears to go against other reports that publisher's organic reach on the platform has fallen significantly over the past few months. Publishers’ organic reach per Facebook post dropped by 52% during the first half of 2016, according to research from SocialFlow reported by MarketingLand.
However, that decline may not be due to an overall decline in reach — which would suggest that referrals to publishers would drop — but rather that publishers are posting more content to the site than ever before. In that case, if reach remains steady — and thus Facebook's referral share remains unchanged — but total number of posts increases, then the average reach per post would drop.
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